Return of the MacBook
I got my MacBook back from Apple already, which I can’t complain about at all. Sent it out on Wednesday and got it back by Friday. Not bad. I also can’t complain about the fact that they replaced a bunch of stuff. While I sent it in primarily b/c of the hard drive failure, I also asked them to try to fix the annoying screen flicker issue that my MacBook, apparently like many others, was suffering from. Not sure what half of this stuff is, but here’s what they replaced:
SPONGE HEATPIPE BACK ASSY, INVERTER,M42 ASSY, HEATSINK,M42(1.0mmConnect) ASSY,BEZEL,M42 DA 60GB SGT MERC-2 SATA ST9618 SVC, TOP CASE W M42 Battery Transfer Board Cli PCB, MLB, 2.0GHZ DC, SMS/KIONI Sponge, thermal sensor conn 2M
So lots of “ASSY” parts, which I hope isn’t supposed to indicate quality level. But not only did I get the new hard drive, but they appear to have replaced the logic board (I assume that’s what the PCB, MLB thing is), the heatsink and inverter and even the top case…again. The flicker hasn’t re-appeared yet, and this is the fourth top case I’ve had on this thing! The first time I actually asked them to replace it as I had those serious discoloration issues that plagued the early Macbooks. After that though they’ve just been replacing it every time I’ve had it serviced for some reason. They replaced the top case when I sent it in for the random shutdown problem last Fall as well. Oh yeah, I also had a battery die prematurely a few months ago and got a new battery as well. So let’s run through this again. Things I’ve had this MacBook serviced for, in order:
- Top case discoloration
- Random shutdown issue
- Bad battery
- Screen flicker
- Dead hard drive
Is there an issue the Macbooks have had that I haven’t personally experienced? I guess this makes my overall Macbook experience either really bad or really good. Really bad because just about everything that’s gone wrong with any of these early Macbooks has gone wrong with mine and I’ve had to endure many headaches as a result. But on the other hand, things are pretty good now because all of these have been resolved (under warranty) and I’ve got nearly all brand new components even though the thing is a year and a half old. Once again, I’ll reiterate my advice about also getting the extended warranty on laptops.